


spread my wings and do a thousand things

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 1 (Critical Role), Canon-Typical Violence, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Infiltration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 23:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: They're hardly the most subtle of the group, but maybe that's a good thing. It will certainly be a night to remember.Or, Grog and Keyleth infiltrate a masquerade. What could possibly go wrong?





	spread my wings and do a thousand things

 

“Well then,” says Vax firmly. “I think it’s settled.”

“Um,” Keyleth says, voice a full octave higher than usual. “No, I don’t think it’s settled at all.”

“You’ll do fine, darling.” Vex offers her an easy smile across the table. “All you have to do is be a bit of a distraction while we break in and get him out.”

“In and out in no time,” her brother agrees. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

They all groan, even Scanlan who’s watching the door and thus only halfway participating in this particular conversation.

“You can’t just  _ say _ that,” Keyleth tells him, and he’s opening his mouth––to apologize, she hopes––when Grog places a hand on her shoulder, knocking the wind out of her a bit and startling them all. He has been remarkably quiet through this whole thing.

“Nah,” he says, decisive. “It’ll be fine. We’re gonna be great. No one’ll be able to take their eyes off us.”

“You do make quite a pair,” says Vex, only a little doubtful, and maybe that’s why her tone of voice goes right over Grog’s head. He grins, puffing out his chest a bit.

“Exactly,” he agrees, and even Keyleth feels herself unwinding slightly at his blind faith in their power to, well. Make a scene. “You and me, Keyleth, we’re gonna wow ‘em.”

“Yeah but like,  _ wow _ them or wow them,” Keyleth asks, and Vax is already shaking his head.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, and Keyleth’s ready to prickle at that, but then Scanlan hisses over his shoulder at them and then turn as one to stare at him.

“I see them!”

Vex twists back to them first. “So you know what you’re doing?”

“Uh,” squeaks Keyleth, and Grog says, “Yep.”

“Good. We’ll meet you outside the castle as midnight.”

“Try not to die,” Scanlan offers, and Grog grins with too many teeth.

“Don’t have too good a fight without us.”

“That’s the plan, big guy,” Vax says, already pulling his hood up. “Good luck.”

Then the trio is gone, Scanlan shimmering into nothing as the twins take to the shadows, practically pulling darkness out of the walls themselves. Keyleth takes a deep breath, and another for good measure, and turns to Grog.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, so we’re gonna do this.”

“Yep.”

“And it’s going to be fine.”

“Yep.”

“Yeah.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, and then Grog pulls a bit of a face.

“I didn’t ask but––if this is a masquerade, do we need costumes?”

Keyleth presses her lips together. “About that... I have an idea.”

“Oh yeah?” Grog asks, and then grins. “Alright. What’s the plan?”

* * *

The fit isn’t perfect, and sooner or later the guests they shoved in a broom closet will wake up, but it’s better than nothing she consoles herself as they hurry down a long, empty hall of thick tapestries and dark stone.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Keyleth mutters as much to Grog as to herself, fixing the mask over her face, vision narrowing through the eye slits. “It’s fashionable to be late.”

“Really?” Grog asks, only picking at his newly procured shoulder cloak a little bit. The shirt was a lost cause, but between the heavy fur mantle and his stature Keyleth thinks it works rather well, if she does say so herself. “Why?”

“I, um, don’t know.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

“Seems kinda dumb.”

“I know!” she exclaims, barely above a whisper, but her voice jumps anyway. Nerves. Grog pats her shoulder reassuringly, and she doesn’t even stumble once. They round the corner down another long, still corridor framed by flickering sconces. Somewhere ahead of them the faint strains of music and laughter echo.

“Okay. So, um. Do we gotta––” He angles one elbow down towards her with a look she can’t quite read through his mask.

“What?”

He frowns and bends down a little. “Be a couple,” he clarifies,  _ sotto voce _ . Keyleth’s eyes go wide.

“Oh. Oh, right!” She loops her arm through his, and she’s tall by most standards but he still shifts slightly to the side to accommodate her. They slow to a stately walk as they reach the next corner, and take a moment to check each other over. It’s good enough. They’ll draw eyes, certainly; that part of the plan will go swimmingly. As long as they can be enough of an oddity to keep attention from the rest of the castle––particularly the dungeons––they’ll be fine.

They’ll be absolutely fine.

Probably.

“Ready?” she asks him quietly, and he hesitates just a moment before he nods. It’s the first uncertainty she’s seen from him, and she squeezes his arm. He grimaces back reassuringly. “Okay.”

Thus paired, Grog dressed in furs with a deep brown bear mask across his forehead, she in orange and brown and wearing a fox’s face over her own, the duo arrive at the towering double doors of the ballroom. An attendant stands to the side with the look of someone who, while awake, has fully settled in to doze for the evening. He starts slightly when he sees them.

“Oh, ah.” He’s got a reedy, nasally voice, the kind that makes her teeth ache. Keyleth feels her palms sweating and tries to blot them against the skirt of her––rather low-cut––dress. “Your invitation?”

“Here,” she says with an imperiousness she absolutely does not feel at all, handing it over with a flourish and nearly dropping it. The attendant opens it and scans it for a long moment, and Keyleth doesn’t even know what could go wrong––it’s the invite Vax lifted from a partygoer earlier in the evening, a bland form letter about Duke so-and-so’s soirée celebrating such-and-such occasion––but she’s certain something is about to go terribly.

Grog clears his throat.

“Yes, well,” says the attendant, jumping a little. Ah. He’d dozed again. Keyleth’s shoulders relax. “Everything seems to be in order. How shall I present you?”

“The Grand Poobah De Doink of All This And That,” Grog says, title rolling off his tongue so easily Keyleth almost stares. “And my, uh.”

“Wife,” she slips in. “Lady, uh. De Doink.”

The attendant stares. “You haven’t got any rings,” he points out. Keyleth opens her mouth to reply and closes it again, casting about for some sort of story.

“We, um. Eloped.”

“Yeah,” Grog agrees. “We el–– al–– that.”

The attendant blinks. He really has got a rather owlish look to him. “Well alright.” He clears his throat and pushes the doors open, striding through, and Keyleth has a moment to share a wild-eyed look with Grog, who returns it with something that might charitably be called a reassuring smile, before they trail after him.

The ballroom stretches for what feels like miles, an enormous cavern of a room with a great arched ceiling painted in a sprawling mural of fat angel children and wild hunts. Chandeliers hang from it, glittering things of diamond and gold that hold thousands of shining candles likes stars, reflected two-fold in the floor-to ceiling mirrors along the left side of the room and the clear-dark windows staring out into the night opposite. Long tables sit against the walls, and in the very center of the room dozens of stately couples swirling like birds and butterflies in their silks and satins upon a wide, slightly raised dance floor. At their feet, a red-carpeted stairwell leads down to the floor itself, and at the base of that a few hundred strangers stare up at them.

Keyleth swallows. Grog’s hand tightens slightly over her own.

“The Grand Poobah De Doink of All This And That,” calls the attendant. His voice has lost its reedy quality and echoes through each corner of the room. Keyleth breathes. “And Lady De Doink.”

There’s a quiet murmur among the crowd, and the attendant clears his throat and steps back.

“Enjoy the party,” he says, owlish and reedy again, and then slips back out the doors. They close behind him with a thud that sounds a little too final for Keyleth’s liking. She takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says, mostly to herself. “We can do this.”

“Yup,” says Grog, only a little choked. She tightens her grip around his arm, lifts her chin a little, thinks  _ what would Vex do _ , and together they descend into the crowd. It parts willingly for them, though that may be because Grog is easily the tallest person in the room. Oh, yeah. They’re gonna attract a lot of attention.

Great. Good. Very good. That’s–– Yeah.

They make it perhaps twenty feet into the crowd before they are interrupted by a woman with elven features who is almost literally dripping with pearls.

“Grand Poobah,” she calls, appearing as though out of thin air. She bows low, greying hair piled atop her head and just as pearl-studded as the rest of her. She wears a mask reminiscent of something weasel-y, and has a band of pale white ermine fur around her collar. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Lady Silverbirch. I have not had the good fortune to see you at one of the Duke’s soiree’s before.”

“Um,” says Grog, and somehow pitches his voice even more booming, and a little more like Percy’s, all round vowels. Keyleth swallows back a laugh that is only party nerves. “Nay. We have only, uh, just gotten. Here.”

“I did think Poobah was an unusual title,” says someone else nearby, a heavyset man whose mask seems to be made entirely of glitter. He speaks with an accent Keyleth can’t place. “Where do you hail from?”

“Tal’dorei,” Keyleth answers, because she can’t be bothered to come up with anything else. “We’re, um. Traveling. On our honeymoon.”

“Oh, recently married,” twitters a third newcomer who presses in tight on their left, boxing them in. Her mask is as avian as her voice. “How wonderful! Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” says Keyleth, eyes flicking between the strangers and their wild masks. Others watch  over the shoulders of the three who have waylaid them, peacocks and tigers and blink dogs and dire wolves and, she thinks, a roc somewhere towards the back. Her heart rate picks up at sight of the crowd; she cannot keep up with all the new bodies staring at them, chattering at them, waiting for a response. Her arm tightens around Grog’s elbow.

He must notice, or feel equally pinned in, because he shifts his stance and the crowd pulls back accordingly, giving them a little more space. She breathes out, long and slow, and keeps her composure as best she can. It’s easier when they don’t press so much.

“So? How do you know the duke?” asks the glittering man, eyeing Grog with only a little trepidation.

“A family friend,” Grog answers, waving a hand idly and forcing them all a little further back. Keyleth feels a sudden wash of fondness for her tall companion.

“We’ve, ah, never met,” Keyleth admits.

“But our parents knew each other.”

“Oh.” Lady Silverbirch looks a bit uncertain at that. “Well, it is wonderful that you could make it. There is nothing quite like one of the Duke’s parties.” She leans in just a little and adds, under her breath but also loud enough to carry, “I hear this one is even to end with an execution.”

“Oh?” Keyleth asks with what she hopes passes for interest instead of nausea.

“Yes. An assassin, they say, but the attempt was stopped. Thank the gods.”

"Well that’s so...” Terrible. It wasn’t even an assassination plot, just a minor case of wrong-place wrong-time. Poor Percy. “Great.”

“Oh, I simply detest bloodshed,” trills the woman in the bird mask. “I think I shall have to leave before then.”

"It’s only a bit of sport,” says the glittery man. “And I’m sure it shan’t be until the party truly gets started, so I’m sure it shalln’t be until midnight. These things always begin late.”

The bird woman seems unimpressed. “I’m certain.” She turns away from the man to curtsy to Keyleth and Grog. “I do hope you enjoy the festivities,” she says warmly, then flits off back into the crowd. Lady Silverbirch likewise dips her head.

“Do mingle. You shall meet people here unlike anywhere else,” she says warmy, and then she and the glitter-drenched man fold back into the eddying crowd and leave the two of them momentarily alone.

“We have to tell them,” hisses Keyleth, fingers drifting up to her earing.

“Not here,” Grog whispers back, leaning in low to not draw attention. It doesn’t help much; large as he is, draw attention is about all he does. Keyleth catches sight of three separate people staring at them with narrowed eyes beneath their jeweled masks and quickly leans forward to kiss his cheek. It’s barely a peck, but he stares at her in shock like a spooked animal, and she could almost swear he blushes.

“Of course, dear,” she pushes on anyway, voice slightly too loud, pitched to carry. She stares meaningfully at the crowd around them. “What a good idea. I would love a drink. Let’s go over there, by the table.”

“Oh, yes,” he says, straightening, not quite looking at her. “I’m a bit peckish.”

She has trouble moving through the crowd, but Grog parts people like water, and as she half-tugs him over to the corner she finds their going easier than anticipated.

“What do we do?” she hisses over a plate of small sausages folden into pastry rolls. They actually look quite appetizing, were she not nauseous with worry. “We can’t leave––”

“Just let ‘em know,” Grog mutters back. “Quiet-like. Hide behind me.”

“You’re not  _ that _ big,” she says, but nevertheless ducks behind him as he makes a show of selecting a handful of delicate hors d’oeuvres from the broad banquet table.

“Hello?” hisses Keyleth into her earring, and a moment later Scanlan’s voice pipes up.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? No, nothing it’s–– Grog and I found something out.”

“What?” Vex asks, voice pitched low. Keyleth glances around the room, but no one seems to be paying her any attention.

“They’re going to execute him as part of the party.”

There’s a sharp inhale of breath. Vex. “They  _ what _ ?”

“Around midnight, probably. So we have––” she can’t see a clock, but based off the last bell–– “Um? Maybe two hours?”

“Got it,” Vax says. “Thanks, Kiki.”

“Ah, yes,” Grog says behind her, so sudden and booming that Keyleth jumps, quickly carding her fingers through her hair to hide he earring. “This is my wife!”

“Oh,” Keyleth says, ducking out from behind him, still fixing her hair, “hello!”

“Well aren’t you a pretty little thing.” Grog has attracted something of a crowd in the span of her conversation, a quartet of fluttering admirers and a handful of suitors in sharp suits sizing him up as competition, or maybe a prize. Keyleth takes a half step closer to him and frowns at one particularly hungry-eyed man in a sleek grey mask.

“Just married, you say?” asks the same woman, mouth a bright red slash beneath her dark spotted mask. “How wonderful. Young love is so very sweet.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” says the man with the grey satin mask. “The fun wears off, you know.”

Another woman huffs, plume of feathers across her forehead shifting as she turns on him. “Truly, Marquis, you do sour the mood. Let them be young and in love! They’ll have plenty of time for the rest later.”

“That’s, uh, very kind of you,” says Grog, eyes sliding sideways to Keyleth, who cannot shrug in front of all these people. His expression is hard to read. “But I’m sure we’ll, uh, be okay.”

“Yes, we’re very in love,” Keyleth agrees, folding her hand around his elbow. She meets his eyes, and could swear he blushes. Something in her chest swells, big and fierce, and she raises her chin slightly and frowns at the man in the satin mask. “And now we are going to dance, if you’ll excuse us.”

She pushes her way through the press of bodies, elbows sharp, and Grog trails along half in her wake, careful in the ways she is not, minding toes and hems and the like. Keyleth has managed to time things out rather well: the previous song has only just ended, and they have time to take their places in the middle of the dance floor.

It is then Keyleth realizes that she doesn’t know the dance.

“So,” mutters Grog, hand doing a delicate sort of hover around her shoulders. “Now what?”

“Just, um, do what they’re doing,” Keyleth hisses back doing her best to mimic a woman nearby whose hands have loosely settled on her companion’s shoulders. It is only a little awkward with Grog’s height.

“Are you sure––?” he starts, hands still not quite resting on her hips, but then the music begins again, and they don’t have time to figure it out because everyone starts moving in a wide circle around the room. At first they are fully occupied with not being stepped on, or stepping on anyone else, but they’ve gotten lucky––the dance is a simple one, and it is not too difficult to fall into the rhythm of it.

Though they perhaps spend a little more effort than the other couples on the floor avoiding each other’s toes.

“You’re really good at this,” Keyleth says after they have finally settled into something almost steady, and she does not need to spend all her focus matching the one-two-three rhythm of the song.

“You too,” says Grog, eyes fixed on his feet. “Didn’t know you could dance.”

“I don’t usually do it like this.”

“Didn’t know you did it at all.”

“It’s, um, sort of tradition. My mother was––” She stutters, misses a step. “She taught me. She was really good.”

“Yeah,” says Grog, and now he’s looking at her, and she can’t read his expression but her cheeks go pink under his scrutiny. “I bet.”

Something in the music changes, picks up, and the stately sweep around the room transforms into a quick clip. Couples spin off the floor, bow out to find refreshments or to watch, and in the space left behind the order of the line dance slips away into something a little more wild and free. Grog grins.

“Give ‘em a show, shall we?”

“Alright,” laughs Keyleth, which turns into a squeak when Grog suddenly lifts her at the waist, spinning her around above his head. She holds tight to his shoulders, skirt flaring out around her, and has a momentary birds eye view of the ballroom, all gilt and glittering, its denizens draped in silk and satin and jewels, and it is nothing like the world she is used to, camping and battles and bawdy jokes across the fire, and her fingers tighten around Grog’s shoulders and she is glad suddenly for the twin marvel of this room and the steadiness of Grog beneath her.

He brings her down as the song ends, and she stands there for a moment, flushed and still half laughing, and Grog’s eyes crinkle beneath his mask. For all that he towers over her, she doesn’t feel small at all next to him. She never feels small next to him.

“Uh,” she says when she has stood here a moment too long, heart hammering. “We should probably move.”

“Right,” he says, and even then they linger there a moment longer before winding their way from the dance floor. Grog grabs a pair of wine flutes from a drifting servant and downs them both in one go, then grabs two more and passes one to Keyleth. It bubbles slightly, and Keyleth coughs when she drinks a little too deep. Grog’s hand is an anvil against her back, and that is not wholly uncomfortable.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” she rasps out, sipping more slowly and leaning slightly against the warmth at the small of her back.

“Keyleth.”

She clears her throat and looks up at him. “No, really, I’m fine.”

Grog frowns at her. “I didn’t say anything.”

Oh.  _ Oh! _ The earring. She stares at Grog, panicked.

“I hope you’re listening,” Scanlan says, loud as if he were standing right next to her. Keyleth shifts a little closer to Grog, lets him break the flow of the crowd around her as she listens to the voice at her ear. “Listen, we’re in place, but there are a bunch of guards. We need a distraction, now. Big as you can manage.”

“Now?” Keyleth asks, staring at Grog, drink forgotten in her hand. “Like, right now?”

“Yes!” That’s Vax, and she hears something…. Ticking? Is that ticking? “Yes, right now Keyleth! Do something!”

“Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, would I do?” 

What would Vax do? Oh.

Easy.

Keyleth drops her drink and punches Grog square in the solar plexus.

“How dare you?” she yells half a beat later, when Grog’s wheezing and staring at her with those confused eyes. She makes what she hopes reads as a significant eye contact and hopes––prays, really, though she’s not much of the praying type––that he’ll play along. “After everything I did for you!” What do couples argue about anyways? “I left my family!”

“Wha––” he starts, and then Keyleth gives another, significant-er glance, and his face transforms. “Oh. Um.” He pitches his voice to carry, and it really does. “My love, I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”

“You have betrayed me!” Keyleth feels herself sort of getting into it; she presses one hand against her forehead. “How could you?”

“No,” he proclaims. They’ve begun to attract a crowd, but it’s not enough. He goes down on one knee and grabs for her hand. “I did it for love.”

People are whispering now, and she can see the shifting movement of people craning to see over the crowd. But it’s not loud enough. A lover’s spat won’t draw the attention they need.

Keyleth grits her teeth.

“It’s over,” she proclaims, and then––because really, it’s probably what Vax would do, and if there was a time to go for broke it’s right now––she transforms into Minxie and  _ roars _ .

The crowd shrieks, scattering in a dozen directions. Masks and clutches go flying as partygoers flee for the exits, or make a brave attempt to stand, drawing ceremonial and blunt-tipped weapons from their masquerade costumes. 

“Gods help her,” someone screams, piercing enough to still the whole of the room. “She’s been transformed!”

Grog jumps up among the chaos, planted like a tree in the midst of a storm.

“Stay back,” he shouts, voice booming over the whole of the crowd. “It’s a terrible curse! She could bite any of you next!”

Keyleth has wrestled with Grog plenty of times to know what this stance means. He holds his arm wide as if to fend off the crowd, but he’s waiting for her. This is truly no different from any other spar, except for the priceless chandeliers dangling above them and the screaming crowd and the guards waving spears stuck in the doorway. The dance floor, at least, is somewhat clear; she takes a running leap and bowls Grog over, scattering the couples there to the four winds. The musicians jump up from their chairs, instruments tucked under one arms as Grog skids towards them, bringing down a collection of music stands with a terrible clatter.

Keyleth crouches in the middle of the floor, claws digging into the smooth wood beneath her as Grog picks himself up, tossing aside a delicate stand. Behind him, the windows reflect the chaos of the room back at them, chandeliers swinging from the ceiling. At the end of the hall, the doors open and guards start pooling through only to be caught against the rush of partygoers trying to leave. Much better.

“Someone do something!” screams a man. Grog rips off his shoulder cloak in one smooth motion, heavy pelt smothering some poor socialite.

“Never fear,” he proclaims, throwing aside his mask to follow and baring his teeth. “I will tame the beast.”

Now that it is to be a  _ show _ the crowd calms slightly, keeping their distance but less interested in fleeing. Just as well––they’re getting in the way of the guards.

“I know you’re in there,” he says, and Keyleth spares a moment to be mildly impressed with how well he’s playing his part. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Keyleth flicks her tail and growls at the crowd, and when they flinch back Grog charges her.

They give a show, as good a one they can manage. It’s certainly easier than making nice and playing the noble couple while drifting through the ballroom, which probably says something about them but Keyleth doesn’t mind. The socializing has always been more Percy’s wheelhouse, or Vex’s or–– Well, anyone else, really.

But a good, honest brawl, well. That’s something they can do.

They circle each other around the floor in their own dance, loud and wild and dangerous, a far cry from their waltz mere minutes before. The crowd watches from afar, equally entranced and frightened, and this sort of attention Keyleth doesn’t mind the attention this time, not when she knows the steps so well. Not when she has such a well-matched partner.

Eventually the first wave of guards manage to push their way to the front of the crowd, drawing weapons that are certainly not ornamental, and she and Grog part enough to take in the new threat. He’s bleeding heavily from a few relatively shallow cuts across the crown of his head in the way of head wounds. Keyleth paces nearby, limping slightly on one paw, tail flicking as she moves, eyes narrowed at the guards.

“Step away from the lion,” one of them orders, waving his spear back and forth between them. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“No, stay back,” Grog warns, one hand outstreched. “You don’t know what she’ll do.”

“Sir, please––”

That is as far as he gets; as he speaks the whole con is blown to bits––literally––when something explodes somewhere below them. The impact of it shakes the whole of the castle, chandeliers rattling overhead. A beautifully stacked pyramid of broad champagne glasses clatters to the floor in a rain of glass and wine.

Grog looks at Keyleth. Keyleth looks at Grog.

“Actually,” says Grog, “on second thought, we’ll get out of your hair.”

He turns at the same time she does, not towards the door but to the floor to ceiling windows at their backs where the shocked faces of the guards reflect back at them against the dark of the night. Keyleth is right at his side when he leaps, and as one they sail above the scattered stands of the orchestra and crash through the glass.

It shatters around them, a thousand shards of glittering crystal following the arc of their fall, frailing in their wake like diamond drops of water. Keyleth transforms in midair, drops the heavy weight of Minxie to grow the feathers and claws and wings of a giant eagle. Her talons catch around Grog’s arm as he falls.

It is a long way down from the second story ballroom to the dirt and gravel gardens below, and even twice, thrice the size of a normal bird Keyleth is nowhere near large enough to lift Grog entirely. It is not a question of  _ if _ they will hit, but how hard. Keyleth strains upward against the inevitable pull of gravity, and as one they brace for impact.

The ground rises to meet them with a resounding, bone-rattling crash, the force of it enough to jolt her out of her animal form and back to regular old Keyleth, and for a moment they roll in a tangle of limbs. Grog beneath her takes the brunt of it, and when they finally come to a rest he lies splayed out flat on his back, Keyleth sprawled on top of him, mask askew and dress a little worse for wear. They both lie there a moment, panting. 

“Well,” says Keyleth. “That was fun.”

“That was  _ great _ ,” Grog crows, sitting up suddenly. There’s a trail of blood at the corner of his mouth, and Keyleth’s fairly certain she’s got sprained a wrist––though whether that is from the fall or the fight she’s not altogether certain––but all in all it could have gone far worse. Grog grins down at her still half seated across his lap. “You were brilliant! That thing with the claws, and the fight, and the eagle, and–– We should do this more often.”

“Without the dancing?” Keyleth asks him, mostly joking, but Grog’s smile changes a little.

“Dancing’s okay too,” he says, and Keyleth goes pink all over again.

“You were a wonderful date,” she tells him. “Fighting and all.”

“And you–– would you like to? Do it again?”

“I–– Yeah. Yeah, I think I would, Grog.”

“Well, great.”

“Great.”

She grins at him for a moment, and he grins at her, and she thinks this is maybe what people are talking about when they say butterflies, or something bigger than butterflies, because her whole inside is doing a fluttering sort of thing, but it’s not altogether terrible. She bites her lip a moment––it’s bloody already, from the landing––and then leans up to kiss him, properly this time, right on the lips, and it really isn’t nearly as strange or surprising as she expects it to be.

Actually, it’s rather nice.

Just as she is thinking that––about how nice kissing is, and maybe that’s why people do it so much, and she wouldn’t half mind kissing some more, if it’s Grog––a terrible clatter arises from somewhere behind them. Guards spill out into the night, bringing with them the red glow of torchlight and sharp barked orders, and Keyleth pulls back a little, reality filtering back in. The kissing will have to wait.

“We should probably go,” says Keyleth.

“Yeah,” agrees Grog, and they both stand and brush themselves off a bit––Grog’s got gravel all down his back, some of it unpleasantly pressed into a few shallow scrapes––and take off into the night. The guards behind them make a great deal of noise, but she and Grog have hightailed from more than one unpleasant situation, and avoiding this one is not particularly difficult, all things considered. The grounds of the Duke’s estate are enormous, dark, sprawling things. They run through the dark, leaving the castle in the distance.

* * *

“Good gods,” Vex says when she sees them appear out of the dark. “What happened to you?”

“We caused a distraction,” says Keyleth, as though it’s obvious. “And I think maybe broke a few windows.”

“Just one,” Grog shrugs. “How’d it go? Did you get him?”

“Actually, we changed our minds,” says Vax. “Decided we would leave him there.”

Grog stares. “What?”

“We got him,” Scanlan cuts in, and Vax grins, all shit-eating and pleased.

“No one even saw us sneak in.”

“No, but quite a few people saw us break out.” Percy speaks up then, propped up against the base of the tree. He looks a little worse for wear, but in good spirits despite everything. He wipes his glasses on the bottom of his shirt and settles them back on his face, blinking up at them in a way that reminds Keyleth of the attendant. “Goodness, you do look terrible.”

“We’re glad you’re ok,” Keyleth tells him fondly. He smiles faintly.

“Did you have fun at the ball?”

“Oh, yes. I think we’d like to go to another one. Right, Grog?”

“Definitely,” Grog says, sharing a smile with her at the mixed looks of shock and disbelief across their friends’ faces. “Percy, think you might throw one of those things?”

He considers. “For you, Grog, I would.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” says Vex.

“I do,” says Vax.

Grog sighs theatrically. “We danced. We fought. We loved. We jumped out a window, which was fucking  _ cool _ . ”

“It was very romantic,” admits Keyleth. “And you were right. Nothing bad happened at all.”

“There!” shouts a voice in the dark. “It’s the assassins! Get them.”

“You had to say it,” groans Scanlan, and Grog laughs, and Keyleth smiles as something bright and hot flares in her chest, and together she and her strange, tattered family make a break for it into the night.

Yes, she’s very much looking forward to the next masquerade.


End file.
